A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office did not intentionally conceal evidence in the 2012 deputy shooting death of Seth Adams with one possible exception -- the deputy's missing cellphone.

The hard drives of laptop computers used by Custer and other tactical team members were also destroyed.

GPS information, which the Sheriff's Office repeatedly said did not exist, was finally produced, as well as more than 1,000 emails, which took the department almost a year to hand over.

Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley said he was satisfied that the Sheriff's Office made a good-faith effort to find and turn over the emails, which was hampered by a software glitch and intensive review process.

Hurley ruled that the missing GPS evidence was a product of a Sheriff's Office employee entering an incorrect date into a computer search. Because that mistake was negligent, he ordered the sheriff's office to pay attorney's fees for the time it took the plaintiff attorneys to argue the issue in several hearings and to take depositions.

Hurley said the Sheriff's Office had an obvious obligation to preserve evidence, but he said since all of the information contained on those laptops was supposedly also saved on the Sheriff's Office servers, it was not negligent that they destroyed the actual hard drives.

However, Hurley said he was "enormously disturbed" that Custer's cellphone went missing and the department treated its disappearance so casually.

The officer who was ordered to preserve it did not follow up on those orders, but was not officially reprimanded.

"But was that bad faith or extreme negligence?" said Hurley.

Hurley said he needed to review that issue and reserved ruling.

Lydia Adams, who is Seth Adams' mother, wiped away tears during the ruling.

"The Adams are very, very disappointed, not so much in the way Judge Hurley ruled but in the way the sheriff's department conducted its investigation," McCall said. "That's what's upsetting, and the acknowledge from the bench, while he didn't grant sanctions, a clear acknowledgment that the case was handled negligently, carelessly, by the sheriff's office, and that's very,very disturbing to someone whose son has been shot and killed."

The family had asked the judge to sanction the Sheriff's Office if he found it at fault.

Hurley did not say when he would rule on the missing cellphone. The trial will be delayed at least a year while Custer appeals his being included in the case.